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I'm sure as that day comes I will go and knock at the door of heaven and I know what they will say, they will look at their list and say: 'Your name is not there, can you try next door?' I won't go next door because if I went there I know what will happen to me, I will burn for the rest of eternity. I will look for a branch of the African National Congress in that world and join it.Nelson MandelaRecipient of the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize.

Afrikaner women are lower than rats, closer related to plants, just fit enough to be raped in an act of genus preservation.Nadine Gordimer, Knighted, Nobel Prize winner.

I hate the Afrikaner. I hate his ways, his language and of course his politics.Nadine Gordimer, Knighted, Nobel Prize winner.

The Americans fight for a free world.
The English mostly for honor glory and medals.
The French and Canadians decide too late that they have to participate.
The Italians are too scared to fight.
The Russians have no choice.
The Germans for the Fatherland.
The Boers?
Those sons of bitches fight for the hell of it!Amerikaanse Generaal, George "Guts and Glory" Patton

Give me 20 divisions American soldiers and I will beach Europe.
Give me 15 consisting of Englishmen, and I will advance to the borders of Berlin.
Give me two divisions of those marvelous fighting Boers and I will remove Germany from the face of the earth.Field Marshall Bernard L. Montgomery (Commander Allied forces WWII)

Take a community of Dutchman of the type of those who defended themselves for fifty years against all the power of Spain at a time when Spain was the greatest power in the world.
Intermix with them a strain of those inflexible French Huguenots, who gave up their name and left their country forever at the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
The product must obviously be one of the most rugged, virile, unconquerable races ever seen upon the face of the earth.
Take these formidable people and train them for seven generations in constant warfare against savage men and ferocious beasts, in circumstances in which no weakling could survive; place them so that they acquire skill with weapons and in horsemanship, give them a country which is immanently suited to the tactics of the huntsman, the marksman and the rider.
Then, finally, put a fine temper upon their military qualities by a dour fatalistic Old Testament religion and an ardent and consuming patriotism.
Combine all these qualities and all these impulses in one individual and you have the modern Boer.Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Their adventures and exploits form one of the most singular chapters of modern history, and deserve a clearer record than has yet been given to them.English historian James Anthony Froude on the Voortrekkers.

Moments after buying a set of nuts and bolts from a hardware store, an elderly Pretoria pensioner was gunned down by a teenager and his accomplice in a botched hijacking.

Killian van Tonder, 75, was shot dead as he tried to fight off his killers. They struck as he was about to get into his white Nissan 1400 bakkie in West Park yesterday.

Car guards and shop owners, who heard Van Tonder scream for help as his killers shot him, rushed to his rescue.

As several people tried to stop Van Tonder, a former Iskor crane driver, from bleeding to death, others, including car guard George Waldeck and hardware store owner Nick Coetzee, chased after the gunmen.

Cornering the suspects in an outside toilet of a nearby house where they were hiding, community members punched and beat them.

Police were forced to rescue the pair, as their assailants refused to stop their assault.

As Van Tonder’s hysterical family begged for the killers to be shot, his son, Hennie, collapsed in front of his father’s body. Stunned businessmen and shoppers gathered and watched as police searched for clues.

Waldeck said the shooting had happened within seconds.

“I was helping a customer when I heard the gunshots. At first I thought it was crackers, but when I heard the screams I knew something bad was happening. When I looked down the road I saw two people trying to pull an old man from his car before running away.

“That was when I gave chase. I did not know that they had shot the man, but I was not going to let them get away. Dozens of us gave chase. We were all so angry,” he said.

Waldeck said he was haunted by Van Tonder’s screams.

“I can still hear him in my head begging and screaming for help. It was so scary. I can’t understand why they did this. The man had no chance against them. He was old and they were so big. He would not have hurt them,” he said.

“I can’t believe it. He was standing right here talking to me. One moment I am having a conversation with him and the next he is dead,” said an emotional Coetzee, who described Van Tonder as regular customer who came into the shop three times a week for a talk.

Coetzee said he was standing behind the counter when he heard Van Tonder scream.

“As I looked up I saw him looking straight at me. He looked terrified. The two gunmen were standing next to him when his body lifted up twice and then he collapsed.

“When I heard those shots I just grabbed my gun and ran to help. There is no way that you cannot help someone. It does not matter who they are.

“When you hear those screams and see that look of fear you have to help,” Coetzee said, recalling how the gunmen shot at him as he opened fire on them as they fled.

Van Tonder’s former colleague, Hennie Geldenhuys, who was inside the hardware store when Van Tonder bought his goods, said he could not believe what had happened.

“It doesn’t make sense. The last time I saw him was a year ago, so we were having a good conversation.

“We were telling each other what we were doing with our lives, where we were living and that we should see each other more often. I was thinking how great it was to catch up with him. Then this happened.”

Police spokeswoman Captain Tessa Jansen confirmed that a 16-year-old boy and 21-year-old man had been arrested for the attack.

“The two will appear in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court on charges of murder and possession of an unlicensed firearm,” she said.

Van Tonder’s son, Killian jnr, said the family was too distressed to talk. “We do not know what to say. It is just too much for us,” he said.

This article was originally published on page 3 of Pretoria News on May 26, 2010